Why does the Church apologize today for burning heretics?

[JamesATyler]

It could well be thought that you have fallen in the trap of confirmation bias and cherry picked the Bible to construct a very fluffy and cuddly Jesus when the real person of Jesus is very different and also stands for JUSTICE!!!

Heresy is any belief or theory that is strongly at variance with established beliefs or customs.

Is it just to kill someone that believes in something radically different than the Church? The Church doesn’t think so. I presume they have had the time to study St. Aquinas in depth and have reached different conclusions. I think it isn’t required for me to do the studying myself because I agree with the Church. I don’t have to refute Thomas because what he said about heretics is basically impotent in the Church today. What he said is moot at best.

But if it were just to kill a heretic then what else would be justified? Certainly apostasy. If it is just for the Church to kill one heretic or unbeliever then it’s just to kill them all. So to assert that it is JUSTICE for us, NOT GOD, but we Catholics, to burn and kill every single person in the world that does not hold absolutely to orthodox Catholic teaching is what you are preaching here. Oh but they get two warnings before we lite the bonfires. Utter Stupidity.

In today’s world we could even mandate polygraphs so we could weed out the cowards who are just saying they believe to save their lives. Double HELL on them.

Don’t you just love people too much to kill them all? Oh we would bring the good news alright. We’d sit them down well out of ear shot of the screeching condemned and tell them about Jesus’s great love for the world. Get real.

How much time should we give for the new slaves, the new converts, to believe correctly. A year? Only if he keeps his mouth shut and doesn’t spread heretical thinking. Oh you got it Jabber. We gonna bring the Kingdom of God to the world like a nuclear bomb.

 

[Rau]

Heresy is any belief or theory that is strongly at variance with established beliefs or customs.

Is it just to kill someone that believes in something radically different than the Church? The Church doesn’t think so. I presume they have had the time to study St. Aquinas in depth and have reached different conclusions. I think it isn’t required for me to do the studying myself because I agree with the Church. I don’t have to refute Thomas because what he said about heretics is basically impotent in the Church today. What he said is moot at best.

But if it were just to kill a heretic then what else would be justified? Certainly apostasy. If it is just for the Church to kill one heretic or unbeliever then it’s just to kill them all. So to assert that it is JUSTICE for us, NOT GOD, but we Catholics, to burn and kill every single person in the world that does not hold absolutely to orthodox Catholic teaching is what you are preaching here. Oh but they get two warnings before we lite the bonfires. Utter Stupidity.

In today’s world we could even mandate polygraphs so we could weed out the cowards who are just saying they believe to save their lives. Double HELL on them.

Don’t you just love people too much to kill them all? Oh we would bring the good news alright. We’d sit them down well out of ear shot of the screeching condemned and tell them about Jesus’s great love for the world. Get real.

How much time should we give for the new slaves, the new converts, to believe correctly. A year? Only if he keeps his mouth shut and doesn’t spread heretical thinking. Oh you got it Jabber. We gonna bring the Kingdom of God to the world like a nuclear bomb.

The notion of “justness” is used both in general (eg. capital punishment is a just form of punishment) and specifically (eg. the thief received “just punishment”). Instances of applying capital punishment for a crime of X may be just, while for other instances of X it is not. Frankly, I’m unclear exactly what JP II apologised for - all instances of a given punishment (eg. those in respect of heresy), or some instances that were notably unjust, or all those instances that may have been unjust.

 

[Mike_from_NJ]

The notion of “justness” is used both in general (eg. capital punishment is a just form of punishment) and specifically (eg. the thief received “just punishment”). Instances of applying capital punishment for a crime of X may be just, while for other instances of X it is not. Frankly, I’m unclear exactly what JP II apologised for - all instances of a given punishment (eg. those in respect of heresy), or some instances that were notably unjust, or all those instances that may have been unjust.

Well that’s easy then. Any physical punishment (especially burning) for the act of heresy is unjust. Assuming JPII sees the freedom to speak one’s mind as an extension of the free will that God gives to all men, then it would follow that he would be apologizing for all of the physical punishments – again, especially burning.

 

[Rau]

Any physical punishment (especially burning) for the act of heresy is unjust.

Do you assert that as an atheist, or would you state the same as true from a Christian perspective? Are you confident your assertion would have been right (from the Christian perspective) at all time-points in the last 2000 years?

If one starts from the position that “God does not exist” (atheism), as I think is your starting point, then any form of punishment for heresy would be arbitrary (so certainly unjust), and indeed - there’d probably be no such offence as “heresy” in an atheist world. The Church does not start from the position of atheism, so your reasoning can’t be so readily adopted.

 

[Mike_from_NJ]

Do you assert that as an atheist, or would you state the same as true from a Christian perspective? Are you confident your assertion would have been right (from the Christian perspective) at all time-points in the last 2000 years?

If one starts from the position that “God does not exist” (atheism), as I think is your starting point, then any form of punishment for heresy would be arbitrary (so certainly unjust), and indeed - there’d probably be no such offence as “heresy” in an atheist world. The Church does not start from the position of atheism, so your reasoning can’t be so readily adopted.

I assert that as someone who believes in the right of humans to state their religious perspective. It does not matter what that religious perspective is.

It also does not matter who happens to be in power at the time. This includes the religious within atheistic North Korea today and includes people in the past who disputed church ideas in catholic Europe. So to answer your question, I am abundantly confident that it would have been right not to slaughter heretics from the christian persective at any time whensoever. Why? Just because the church had a stranglehold on orthodoxy at the time doesn’t mean that those who differ deserve death. If you feel that those christians who are currently under threat of death for their beliefs don’t warrant be massacred, it doesn’t take much to plug that into any scenario. Might does not make right.

 

[LiberalPrincess]

Because it was wrong and inhuman. Period.

Never knew this actually happened. Glad I live in 2013, and not back then!

 

[Rau]

Hello,

So the question is pretty much what the title says: Why does the Church apologize today for burning heretics?

I do not see why we should do that when I see justification given for these actions in the past. The Catholic Encyclopedia released in 1912 says……

So why on earth is there an apology? This essentially feels like the Church apologizing for Capital Punishment when Capital Punishment is a just punishment.

Heresy in the relevant historical period is presented somewhat akin to “treason” “heresy was looked on as more malignant than treason”]. Today, the punishment for treason in some jurisdictions can be death, and it certainly was in the past. The referenced encyclopaedia suggests this (the punishment for heresy) was not regarded as excessive at the time.

The process was a cooperation of Church and Secular authorities: “The burning of heretics was first decreed in the eleventh century. The Synod of Verona (1184) imposed on bishops the duty to search out the heretics in their dioceses and to hand them over to the secular power”.

Q1 Was the Church doing God’s will ~800 years ago when it facilitated the killing of heretics?
A1 Maybe, maybe not.

Q2 Was the decree from the Synod of Verona that gave rise to the Church’s actions to be accepted as a teaching of the Church (let alone one of those quite rare infallible teachings), or not?
A2 I don’t believe so. It may have been a failure to follow Christ. Certainly, the Church can do wrong in the world. It may arrive at wrong decisions, freely, or under duress. It’s Canon Law is changeable. The “fact” of the apology by JPII suggests it was not.

Q3 But **if **the Church was right in its conduct ~800 years ago, is it right to apologise today?
A3 Arguably, there would be nothing to apologise for, though this may seem stubborn to people today who believe the historical period is not relevant.

Q4 If the Church believed sincerely (at the time) that it was doing right ~800 years ago, but subsequently realised it had errored, is it right to apologise?
A4 Yes, an expression of regret would be in order. [Which is what we have…]

The above Q1 may as well have been written as “was death at the stake a just punishment for heresy ~800 years ago”? Some on this thread assert it was, in which case they may well ask - why should the Church apologize? I don’t know whether it was Just (in the sense of punishment fitting the crime). Would Christ have advocated it?.

Perhaps there is also a need to differentiate between the general application of “burning at the stake” to heretics and the numerous individual cases. It is likely that in some cases, what transpired was less Just than in others. It may be that the apologies are not intended to repudiate the entire practice of killing (by burning) heretics, but those occasions were it was less than Just.

But notwithstanding [and I can hear the howls coming…], I don’t believe the Church operates with any protection that it will always make correct decisions about which of its intended actions are JUST. And the specifics of what actions may be JUST in one time period may change in another, for the Church acts “in” the world. [Which is not to say that Truths taught as such may change.] And the Church may deliver an apology in error too.

 

[clem456]

vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/cti_documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20000307_memory-reconc-itc_en.html

Thank you for that.
I find it telling that this post was barely noticed in this awful mess.

It has never been Catholic Church “doctrine” to kill anyone in furtherance of the faith. It was wrong when it did happen and will be wrong in 1000 years. Those who did it in the name of the Church were wrong, no matter how acceptable it seemed at the time.
It violates the 5th commandment. That’s doctrine.

Here’s a piece from the link above. The bolded lines point out the stupidity of violence in “protecting” the faith.

5.3. The Use of Force in the Service of Truth

To the counter-witness of the division between Christians should be added that of the various occasions in the past millennium when doubtful means were employed in the pursuit of good ends, such as the proclamation of the Gospel or the defense of the unity of the faith. “Another sad chapter of history to which the sons and daughters of the Church must return with a spirit of repentance is that of the acquiescence given, especially in certain centuries, to intolerance and even the use of force in the service of truth.”(78) This refers to forms of evangelization that employed improper means to announce the revealed truth or did not include an evangelical discernment suited to the cultural values of peoples or did not respect the consciences of the persons to whom the faith was presented, as well as all forms of force used in the repression and correction of errors.

Analogous attention should be paid to all the failures, for which the sons and daughters of the Church may have been responsible, to denounce injustice and violence in the great variety of historical situations: “Then there is the lack of discernment by many Christians in situations where basic human rights were violated. The request for forgiveness applies to whatever should have been done or was passed over in silence because of weakness or bad judgement, to what was done or said hesitantly or inappropriately.”(79)

As always, establishing the historical truth by means of historical-critical research is decisive. Once the facts have been established, it will be necessary to evaluate their spiritual and moral value, as well as their objective significance. Only thus will it be possible to avoid every form of mythical memory and reach a fair critical memory capable - in the light of faith - of producing fruits of conversion and renewal. “From these painful moments of the past a lesson can be drawn for the future, leading all Christians to adhere fully to the sublime principle stated by the Council: ‘The truth cannot impose itself except by virtue of its own truth, as it wins over the mind with both gentleness and power.’”(80)

 

[severus68]

Can you explain how we can have such an evolution of our understanding to accept what you just said? Because the Church can and has used execution of heretics as a valid method of punishment.

We have developed in our understanding about what Christ taught.

 

[Rau]

We have developed in our understanding about what Christ taught.

Yes, however Jaber seems to be working on the assumption that the Church can’t make a mistake in the views it forms and the actions it takes in the world.

 

[severus68]

I don’t think that Thomas is greater than Jesus. Jesus said it very plainly and that’s they way the Church teaches today. It’s obvious to me that they were wrong. gasp

That’s the point isn’t it. Some look everywhere and quote everyone but Jesus.

 

[severus68]

Yes, however Jaber seems to be working on the assumption that the Church can’t make a mistake in the views it forms and the actions it takes in the world.

Yes, that is clear. Then, he should not question anything the Church says and does today, even the apologies.